The Melee Scholar potion had been fully digested. The main and supplementary ingredients for Warlock were all in hand, and it was time to advance...
Odis had originally planned to advance earlier tonight, but the matter with Mike had disrupted his schedule. It was only now, near midnight, that he finally had time to consider whether to proceed.
'Now is as good a time as any.' He took a deep breath. Though it was very late, he felt his condition was quite good.
Sequence 7 was a qualitative transformation stage for the Mystery Pryer Pathway as well. Upon becoming a Warlock, he would gain access to a number of Beyonder abilities, greatly enhancing both his self-defense and offensive capabilities.
So Odis picked up his lantern, went to the front counter to gather the supplementary ingredients, and retrieved the other main ingredient from the Knowledge Moor: the brain of a Pale Long-Necked Beast.
With all materials prepared, he began concocting the potion...
First, he dripped six drops of the slightly toxic Aconite juice into the beaker, then measured out 18 grams of Black-Edged Lilac powder; a substance with hallucinogenic effects. He then added 60 milliliters of pure water.
Just like that, a poison capable of inducing angina and hallucinations was prepared.
Odis couldn't help but reflect: 'The supplementary ingredients in potion formulas really do fight poison with poison...'
Next, he added the deep crimson blood of a Silver-Beaked Crane to the beaker. Pharmacologically speaking, this one was actually a tonic, though it had no detoxifying properties.
Odis opened the two wooden boxes before him.
From the first, he took out a tiny brain that seemed as though blood still flowed through it. The organ was roughly the size of a thumb's pad, yet it bore an uncanny resemblance to a human brain. Within its crystalline, translucent vessels, specks of illusory light shimmered, and it was in the glow of these lights that the brain appeared to have blood still circulating.
After adding the main ingredient, the liquid in the beaker reacted rapidly. Odis did not stir it, yet the potion began to flow on its own, as if dissolving the solids within.
Finally, he added two longan-sized Fleabane Tree fruits, which still twitched faintly from time to time.
The potion in the beaker immediately formed a small vortex. Churning under its own power, it ultimately transformed into a dark green pus with gray, flocculent particles floating in it.
'Though incredibly disgusting, it looks a bit more palatable than the Melee Scholar potion,' Odis thought.
He took a deep breath and used Cogitation to still the surging thoughts in his mind. Only once he had achieved complete calm did he abruptly down the potion.
The moment the ice-cold liquid entered his stomach, Odis felt as if he heard a violent rumble. His entire being grew muddled, as though he had returned to an innocent, carefree childhood.
But this pleasant sensation quickly faded. A few seconds later, Odis felt a splitting headache, as if something inside his skull was trying to burrow its way out but couldn't find an exit, thrashing and churning about instead.
He even had the illusion that his skull had turned to soft cartilage, with something inside pushing his left cranium up one moment, and his right cranium up the next.
In truth, this was no illusion. His head had actually become as soft as a water-filled balloon. A small bump moved restlessly about, like a tiny snake burrowing beneath the skin...
*Clang*
The sound of the beaker hitting the floor restored some of Odis's lucidity. He fought desperately against the pain with his will, struggling not to lose consciousness.
But soon, a needle-pricking pain assaulted his head. Not just pricking, either; after each puncture, the needle seemed to twist.
Then the sensation shifted to the pain of being cut by a small knife, followed by the pain of being crushed between two hard objects. It was as though someone was entertaining Odis's brain with an assortment of torture instruments, subjecting it to every manner of abuse.
At last, the first wave of headache subsided, only to begin again with a wrenching ache. But this second wave was considerably milder.
Odis swiftly used Cogitation to resist the pain, and soon, the symptoms diminished significantly. Yet he knew all too well that he still had to grit his teeth and push through the final trial of advancement.
Just as the pain had largely faded, that cold, alien voice suddenly bored into Odis's ears once more:
"O boundless cosmos! Thou... heap... jumbled leaps... knowledge... Canal... endless..."
Though he could make out a few more words this time compared to his previous advancement, the vast majority remained indistinct.
The unintelligible parts were sometimes like the low growls of savage beasts, making Odis's heart pound in terror; sometimes like fingernails scraping thin sheet metal, producing shrill, grating noises that filled him with unbearable agitation; sometimes like harmful ultrasonic waves that left him dizzy and disoriented.
Fortunately, the voice quickly faded. But Odis had already collapsed to the floor, veins bulging on his forehead. He seemed to have lost consciousness for a brief moment.
Immediately after, a violent wave of vertigo struck him like severe motion sickness, or extreme intoxication, causing him to begin dry heaving once more.
A minute or two later, Odis slowly rose from the floor gasping heavily.
'No. I have to find a way to block the Hidden Sage's voice. Advancing leaves me in a weakened state, and hearing those ravings from him right after is simply too terrifying.' He thought.
He planned to consult Bernadette at an opportune moment and borrow something from her.
Apparently, Roselle had once crafted a mystical item for her that could prevent Pursuit from the Hidden Sage, so Odis wondered if he could study it, attempt to create a lower-tier version, or find a way to replicate it.
But that was a matter for another time. For now, he continued to use Cogitation to stabilize his condition. After a few more minutes, all physical discomfort had vanished, though pressing on his head still produced a slightly numb sensation.
This led Odis to strongly suspect that the Sequence 7 Warlock potion primarily strengthened the brain, which would explain why the advancement process consisted almost entirely of various headache symptoms.
Next, Odis used his spirituality to sense the new abilities he had gained from the advancement.
First, he had acquired the capacity for Spellcasting, though that term was overly broad. More precisely, he could now perform a series of spells, each cast by utilizing materials and visualization.
Take Flight, for instance. When needed, Odis could use Flight Powder prepared in advance from spiritual materials as a medium to cast a spell enabling brief flight. During the casting process, he would need to outline the corresponding mysticism symbol in his mind.
Also, the formula for Flight Powder was Knowledge that had been instilled in him upon advancement.
At this moment, his mind contained twelve such bodies of Knowledge similar to Flight, including their corresponding mysticism symbols and the formulas for the required spiritual materials.
Odis picked up his pipe, toying with it as he pondered: 'Summarizing the knowledge I've received regarding Spellcasting, the three essential elements are: mentality, spirituality, and materials...'
He formulated a rather apt analogy: The mysticism symbol that must appear in the mind during spellcasting was akin to a startup code, enabling the Beyonder characteristic within his body to exert its corresponding power. In other words, with sufficient mastery of mysticism knowledge, one could potentially create one's own startup codes for spells.
Those twelve spells were a bit like pre-installed software, but if one knew how to program and design software, one could also create custom applications.
Odis then mentally reviewed each of the twelve mysticism symbols corresponding to the spells he currently possessed.
He quickly noticed that while these symbols bore some resemblance to common mysticism symbols, a careful study revealed their usage was fundamentally different. These symbols were more concise, yet each individual symbol conveyed more complex, more symbolic meaning.
At the same time, these mysticism symbols differed in many respects from the ones he had deduced through his own research.
Odis scratched his head: 'The mysticism symbols I painstakingly deduced aren't compatible with warlock spells after all. That's a problem...'
But then another thought struck him. These were all symbolic representations to begin with, and they had no inherently fixed forms. It was like the Warring States period in ancient times; the seven kingdoms each had different writing systems, yet when used to record information, the meaning expressed was fundamentally the same.
This gave Odis a bold idea: 'Could I cast spells using the mysticism symbols I derived myself? An experiment is necessary.'
Among the twelve spells, he selected Flame, whose corresponding spiritual materials were relatively easy to prepare. He immediately went to the front shop and retrieved powder ground from the leaves of a Blazing Crimson Maple and tufts of red fur from a Fire-Striped Marten.
He snipped the red fur into fine pieces, mixed it with the powder, and thus prepared the materials required for Flame Sorcery.
Odis first replaced the mysticism symbol for the Flame spell in his mind with the symbol he had deduced himself. Then he went into the courtyard.
While outlining the corresponding symbolic representation in his mind, he infused the spiritual materials with spirituality and scattered the powder outward.
*Whoosh!*
The scattered powder erupted into a roaring blaze!
"Success!" As the flames before him died down, Odis nearly threw his head back and howled at the sky, "It really works!"
With his research into mysticism symbols and spirituality, he would be the Warlock with access to the greatest total number of spells in existence!
...
Back inside, a faint smile lingered on Odis's face. He filled his pipe, then dipped his fingers into a few grains of the powder used for the Flame spell.
A tiny flame sprouted from his fingertip, and he used it to light his pipe, taking a deep, satisfying drag.
His mind was already turning to the possibility of writing a Compendium of Warlock Sorceries.
After indulging in that fantasy for a moment, Odis returned to analyzing the mechanics of Spellcasting.
Having grasped the principle behind the mental component, he now contemplated the second element: spirituality.
A Warlock's Spellcasting indirectly confirmed his theories about the relationship between spirituality and Beyonder characteristics. In his view, Beyonder characteristics utilized spirituality as a medium to execute Beyonder abilities.
In this process, spirituality occupied a position of paramount importance. In its ordinary state, spirituality produced no supernatural effects. But once distorted and fundamentally altered by a Beyonder characteristic, its state became something entirely different.
It became capable of mobilizing the forces of nature, unlocking the body's latent potential, and disrupting the spiritual equilibrium within a target–
*Crack!*
A sudden thunderclap rang outside.
.
.
.
*Crack!*
Max, who was on duty in Backlund, heard the thunder as well.
'Thunderstorms should not occur this time of the year. It's most likely the Mandated Punishers handling another case.' He reasoned.
At that moment, the door to his office was suddenly pushed open. An agent of the Machinery Hivemind entered, holding a telegram, "Captain, an urgent dispatch from headquarters."
Max quickly rose and took the telegram. Its contents read: <...Odis Gale has advanced to Warlock. Priority observation and surveillance...>